On Tuesday 24th May, students at the Junior Campus enjoyed our first Year 7-9 Health Day, the Be Well, Stay Well event.
The aim of the event was to re-energise students and enable them to further develop the social and emotional skills to grow into happy, respectful, well-balanced and successful members of the school and wider community. The workshops were designed to give our students positive health messages by providing them with information to look after their own health and wellbeing, as well as increasing their knowledge of local health services.
The Be Well, Stay Well event is part of our school-wide Health Promotion Plan, and is one strategy aligned to our school’s Annual Student Wellbeing Goal: to effectively mobilise available resources to support students’ wellbeing and mental health.
Expert health professionals and members of VUSC staff planned and facilitated workshops on the day on a range of topics such as sleep hygiene, eating and exercise, mental fitness, mindfulness and relaxation, online safety, making smart choices and positive risk taking, health care pathways, emotional literacy and safe gaming.
At VUSC we have a whole school approach where we model respectful behaviours, values and inclusivity, to improve our teacher-student relationships and to also build an inclusive and safe school community to support everyone’s wellbeing and improve the learning outcomes for all our students.
Here are some comments from students about the day:
The day was fantastic! There were plenty of activities that took place throughout the day to educate students on different aspects of life. The 4 activities that I had were about Choices and risk-taking, also learning about Health care and the different places we can go to get help, a party safe lesson as well as a staying well lesson. My favourite activity was the party safe lesson because we got to be interactive and I got to wear beer goggles and gain an understanding of how to be careful when drinking. The beer goggles gave us a simulated experience of being affected by alcohol. It was a hit amongst the younger students too, I had heaps of year 7’s tell me that they were having a good day – Kimba Lewis
The day was incredibly insightful, it had us all thinking about not only how we could stay safe but how we could keep each other safe. Not only did we have a wonderful performance at lunch by the concert band, we also got to meet new people from a variety of different backgrounds – Erin Austin
‘Be well stay well’ health and well-being day was a huge success! We learnt lots from the visitors we hosted, and collaborated on all different types of activities throughout the day! My favourite part of the day would definitely have to be our ‘party safe’ workshop, because it was interesting to see the official glass size normally per alcohol type, and the comparison to a free pour the students poured. A big thanks to all the visitors, your stories made today all the better! – Paige Albury
Todays ‘Be Well Stay Well’ workshop was an amazing opportunity for us students to expand our knowledge on how to make good choices, how to reach out for help and how to take care of our mental health. The presenters that came today explored a variety of topics such as consent, health care etc. Through interactive activities, we were able to development our understanding and it was wonderful to hear the stories that were shared to us – Jasey Chu Pham
A similar event will run at the Senior Campus next term. Well done to all involved!
